Wheels Up from the Hornet

Sixteen Army B-25 bombers were lashed to the flight deck of the carrier USS Hornet, an aircraft never meant to fly from a ship. The plan was to launch them about 400 miles from Japan on the evening of April 18, 1942. At dawn a Japanese picket boat spotted the task force, and Admiral Halsey ordered the launch at once, more than 600 miles out.

Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle went first at 8:20 a.m., with 467 feet of deck in front of him and the bow pitching in a heavy sea. Every one of the sixteen got off. They bombed Tokyo, Yokohama, Nagoya and Kobe, and flew on toward China with no fuel to spare.

Fifteen crews crash-landed or bailed out over China; one landed in the Soviet Union. The Hornet had six months to live.

The bomber has just cleared the deck, wheels still down, the carrier's island and signal flags rising behind it through the spray. The deck crew crouch along the catwalk in their colored jerseys, holding their caps against the wind. Spray comes clean over the bow. The escorts run in the distance under a low gray ceiling. The painting is all forward motion — everything leans toward the top right of the frame, where Japan is.